Andy's Mind

My mind is like a spotlight. It can focus on a dream, feeding images with its light. It can focus on a plan, bringing up connections and dependencies. It can focus on my sore butt. It can focus on a sound, shining in fireworks of branched thoughts. But it is so difficult to turn into a calm lamp, shining peacefully in all directions, not concentrated into a beam, not focused on anything in particular. And it’s even harder for the mind to shine onto itself.

My mind is like a piece of clay. It’s so flexible and adaptable. It changes so much with every year, month, week as I learn new things, picking them up like flowers while walking the path. It changes so much with everything I forget. There seems to be no limit to the shapes and sizes it can take.

And yet, it’s always afraid of the next step, next change of shape. Why?

I stare at the screen. The cursor blinks. Ages ago someone might have stared at a cave’s wall or papyrus sheet, blank, waiting for the signs to appear. The magical signs that would transmit the joy of a hunt, the pain of a loneliness, the thrill of a discovery. And they do. But first, the story must appear in the mind. The tools in the hands have changed, the way stories surface from the sea of mind didn’t.

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When I saw her this thought came to me again. She was walking towards me, a perfect blonde with long hair flowing onto her shoulders, just a little lower than me, with well marked, round breasts visible under a white blouse and a face, as perfect as her body, symmetric, smooth. Her eyes, blue-gray, just like mine, were looking through me as though I didn’t exist, while a hardly noticeable half smile twisted her perfect lips into an expression of princely superiority and indifference to a mere mortal whose presence she had to politely endure for this brief, unpleasant moment.

Yeah, I thought again, is there a ghost in this shell? Is there, beneath that superficial pose, a mind that could withstand five minutes of real conversation? Is it really so that external beauty precludes internal depth and goodness? Or is it just my karma playing tricks on me?

I was in a big shopping mall today. I went there to get my car washed inside and out in preparation for selling it. As it was cleaned I went inside to somehow spend this hour. I bought something to eat, a portion of plastic mall food served on a paper dish with plastic cutlery on a plastic tray. I sat in a plastic chair by a plastic table and, while eating this stuff and drinking an artificial bubbly drink, I watched people around me.

It’s interesting how much my perception changed since the time when I worked nearby, in the offices of one of the biggest telco companies on the market. Somehow I felt out of place there today, not belonging to the crowd of haves anymore I ventured onto their terrain to watch them. I’m not sure if I want to get back into this circle again, but then I’m not sure I really would like to stay outside. Life seems easier from the inside, even if it’s just an illusion it’s a strong one.

All in all I have a feeling I wasted most of my day. I didn’t work as much as I wanted. I didn’t accomplish even a third of what I wanted to today. I just can’t get a grip strong enough on myself, squeeze myself strong enough, focus on writing documents which I don’t give a damn about, somehow keep my mind from running away to browse the net, discuss photos, write e-mails etc. Internet is a killer for productivity. But I’m addicted, I can’t help it.